When it comes to choosing a customer retention marketing provider, car dealerships need to evaluate the technology behind the programs.  In looking at this technology, three of the following topics must be addressed:

(1)   Will this technology seamlessly integrate your customer data?

(2)   Will it be compatible with your operating system?

(3)   Will it be able to pull current, actionable customer data?

In a perfect world, you could buy a software solution and implement it without any customization necessary.  In reality, that is rarely the case.  Finding a program that provides seamless integration, therefore, is a primary selling point.  It means that you can avoid data integration glitches, keeping costs down and timelines on track.

Another factor that should be considered is how compatible this new software solution will be with your dealership’s operating system.  The compliant software will save much needed time, money and resources that would otherwise be required for ongoing maintenance.  As time goes on, the software will need to grow with the business, and compatibility would allow for key additions to the software’s functionality and other improvements.

Finally, the technology behind your customer retention marketing program must be able to pull actionable data.  Due to the exceptionally high volume of phone calls into a dealership, any plan that has flawed data collection leads to poor revenue. Therefore, the collected analytics should encourage interaction based upon actionable customer data with the goal to attain desired results.

Today’s dealerships see offers from countless marketing vendors.  Understanding the three factors most important to finding the best the best technology match can help.  Remember, seamless integration, compatibility and actionable data help ensure that your dealership’s retention marketing programs can get up and running faster and be most effective in reaching your customers.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the automotive service marketing realm, customer relationship programs are essential to successful car dealer marketing.  From new vehicle sales to automotive service, dealerships are always looking for ways to reach out to their customers and improve upon customer loyalty.

By initiating customer relationship campaigns, a car dealership can augment their car dealer direct marketing plans and enhance their bottom lines.

To do so, automotive dealerships can utilize the following tips as a solid foundation for their customer relationship initiatives.

• Get back to your customer. All too frequently, customer relationship marketing can be a one-way street:  all talk and little response often leaves a dealership without a sale.  Dealerships can break through that wall and follow-up by any means available (email, direct mail or phone) to help foster a relationship.

• Relevant updates. The key to any campaign is to keep your customers informed on any upcoming special, new car rollout or manufacturer-backed sales event.  But just remember one thing: it’s the quality of the message, not the quantity.  Flooding mailboxes and email inboxes can have a negative impact on current and future direct marketing campaigns.

• Be involved. A locally owned dealership comes with a set of civic responsibilities.   Being an active, visible member of a community creates a sense of trustworthiness and dedication.  By taking part in charitable causes and other area events, you can help put your dealership in a positive light and generate local goodwill.

• Document, document, document. When prospecting, data is collected to help shape future campaigns.  By compiling additional information (what vehicle they bought, when it was purchased and what brought them there, for example), your dealership’s future campaigns can be finely tuned and personal – helping you improve customer response and make repeat customers.

Creating a lasting relationship with your clients is a vital tool in any business plan.  Following up with your customers, providing relevant updates, being involved in the community and documenting additional data are just some key points to keep in mind when putting together a customer loyalty campaign for your dealership.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

Establishing an automotive dealer’s online presence can be a difficult proposition.  There are a number of elements to think about in assembling a plan to make your dealership more visible in the online world.

As part of our ongoing series on building an online presence for your automotive marketing initiatives (link to first blog here), we’ve offered a few key points that serve as a foundation for your strategy.  In this edition, we’ll delve into how making a connection with your client database serves as a vital component of those efforts. 

For starters, active listening is a great way to gauge what your customers are saying about your product or service.  It requires a listener to have the ability to comprehend what is taking place and serve in the role of customer relationship manager.  In doing so, you’re establishing yourself as a knowledge leader, a person that online users go to when they’re seeking information.  Active listening requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear.  To do, utilizing such tools as Twitter, industry forums and blogs can help in getting a better understanding of what people are saying about your brand.

Ideally, the next step is instituting relevant email campaigns that use the gathered data from the listening activities.  If people are saying your store has great customer service (for example), play that up.  If people are saying your store doesn’t, then be sure to emphasize service changes you may be instituting.  Using the data you accumulated via active listening in your messages shows your customers you’re proactive in meeting their needs.

One last point to consider is creating those messages and crafting them in a way that spurs a call to action.  For instance, an automotive service marketing initiative should be crafted in a way that can either serve loyal customers or ones that are unresponsive (remember active and inactive customers?).  For loyal customers, an offer of a discounted oil change or service could drive traffic into your dealership.  On the flip side, non-loyal or unresponsive customers will probably require more aggressive pitches.  Additionally, deeper discounts may be needed to entice them to use your automotive service department.

With these tips in mind, your automotive marketing campaigns can effectively reach all facets of your client database and improve your ROI.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In order to build an automotive dealer’s online presence, there are a handful of points to consider.  A recent blog on building your dealership’s online presence highlighted such tips as engagement, reach and choice as valuable techniques in establishing that existence.

In this blog, we’ll tackle the practice of engagement as a key component in your marketing efforts online.  In future blogs, we’ll delve into the other components that can help establish and maintain a dealer’s online presence. 

First thing’s first: what is engagement?

By definition, engagement is the act of an encounter between two or more individuals or companies that can be a positive, negative – or even neutral – experience.  Simply put, it’s a level of interaction that can either leave a prospect satisfied or dissatisfied with a dealership’s offerings.

In the online world, there are a number of ways to put you in front of customers and engage them in the sales, customer service or relationship building processes.  Facebook, Twitter and automotive-branded video channels offer three potent portals for online engagement.

Book ‘em, Dano.  As of this writing, Facebook’s online community consists of over 500 million active members.  Of that number, it’s estimated that 50 percent log into their accounts every day.   With those statistics in mind, it would stand to reason that this social media platform is a critical piece in customer engagement.  Facebook provides an important and active communications portal to relate and interact with your customers on issues ranging from customer service to important dealership announcements.

Tweet, Tweet.  With over 190 million visitors per month and users generating over 65 million “tweets” per day, Twitter has become the little social media engine that can.  Despite its 140-character limit, Twitter offers both reach and immediacy to those seeking automotive information.  Moreover, its search function and active user base allow automotive marketing professionals to seek out conversations and engage potential customers in discussion, thus developing relationships and putting a product or service top of mind in the decision process.

Branded and Ready.  When not researching and reading blogs, video channels like YouTube and Hulu provide car dealership marketers with a medium that can offer terrific reach.  Having a branded video channel can offer identity and brand association.  It can also provide potential consumers reviews and relevant information in a quick, direct format that’s easily consumable.

By using these three important outlets in your direct marketing efforts, your dealership can create a high level of online engagement with your customers.  

In an upcoming blog, we’ll discuss how reach can improve sales and offers a better return on investment.

When it comes to setting up sales goals for your car dealership, there is no magic equation.

Some dealers use prior sales data, consider any changes in personnel and then make a reasonable guess as to how many vehicles they should sell the next month.  Some dealers compare last month’s sales data to the same month from last year.  Others use methods that require adding the number of vehicles in stock to calculate inventory turn rates.

No matter the tactic, the point is simple: there is no simple solution to project your sales goals.  Whatever equation you implement, the key to achieving those goals is to calculate the activity needed.

Tracking and reporting activity is a vital aspect in understanding exactly where in your sales process each associate needs help and it will help each of your associates achieve their goals.  The equation will remain the same but the numbers in the equation must be unique to each individual.   We’ve all heard the cliché that “sales are a numbers game.”  Most dealers track their close ratio by comparing the number of logged ups to sales.  In order to use statistics to help achieve your goals, the equation can be and needs to be more detailed and tailor-made for each associate.

For example, you set a goal of 10 cars next month for one of your sales associates (for this discussion, we’ll call him “Ben”).  Let’s work backwards from there to track Ben’s activity.  First, you’ll need answers to the following questions:

• How many “write ups” does it require for Ben to sell a vehicle?
• How many test drives does it take Ben to complete a “write up?”
• How many people does Ben need to greet on the sales lot to complete a test drive?
• If you rotate “phone ups” track those statistics too.
• Of those “phone ups,” how many does it take for Ben to set an appointment?
• Of those appointments, how many does Ben need to set in order to get a “lot up”?

Now you have Ben’s activity stats to help Ben understand what activity he needs to generate in order to meet his goal.  For example, let’s say his numbers are the following:

• 10 sales = 20 write ups
• 20 writes = 30 test drives
• 30 test drives = 35 lot ups
• 5 shown appointments = 10 scheduled appointments
• 10 scheduled appointments = 20 phone ups

So, Ben will need 35 lot-ups each month to reach the 30 test drives and 20 write-ups to ultimately reach his projected goal of 10 sales.  For phone ups, he will need to answer the phone 20 times next month to reach his projected goals.

When your dealership starts to create associate-specific goals, you’ll need to keep measurements like this in mind.  There will also be other factors at work, like the “40/60 Rule” (which states that 60% of vehicles are sold in the final 2 weeks of the month).

The other key to successfully using statistics to achieve your goals is to drill your equations all the way down to daily activity.  After a few months, give your associates their sales goals and let them calculate the activity needed to accomplish their goals.

So before setting up next month’s projections and goals, take a look at the stats from your activity for your current month and grind away!

~ Steve Dozier, National Director of Training @ DMEautomotive

Bio:

Steve Dozier brings 15 years of experience in the automotive industry to DMEautomotive (DMEa). Before joining DMEa, he held upper level management positions in the retail industry. Steve also owned a consulting company that specialized in CRM and direct mail, which brought in $2 Million in Sales for approximately 5 years. While serving as a consultant Steve was consistently recruited by the top 3 CRM firms of that time. Steve started at DMEautomotive in a managerial position overseeing the Direct-to-Dealer team, and is now responsible for developing and growing DMEa University; DMEa’s in-house dealer training organization. Steve is married with two children and enjoys scuba diving and boating in his free time.

It was once said in a popular television campaign that “image isn’t everything… it’s the only thing.”  In the landscape of online search results for automotive direct marketing, the same mantra applies: being in the top three pages of search rankings isn’t everything… it’s the only thing.

With customer’s decisions becoming more and more based upon online search, bolstering campaigns that yield top returns can not only yield positives, but it can also improve the all-mighty metric: return on investment (ROI).

According to a study conducted by iProspect and JupiterResearch in 2008, landing in the upper tier of search results – the first three pages of a simple search – has significant benefits.

• 68% of search engine users typically click on a result that appears on the initial landing page that comes up through a search query

• 92% of search engine users typically click on a result that appears on the first three pages

• 39% of search engine users link search result placement to a company’s prominence

Additionally, statistics show that a user is 48% more likely to change the terms of their search (rather than sticking with their current search terms) if their search is associated with a good or a service.  The same study points out that 49% of web users continue to change their search term in order to yield better results.  Respondents also strongly indicated (91%) that they change their search terms if the results didn’t appear on the first three pages.

This data shows just how important it is for a dealership to appear in search results on the first three pages.  By utilizing content that’s properly optimized and keyword enriched, the appropriately tailored direct marketing plan can achieve organic returns on the first three pages of a web user conducted search, and therefore get the audience attention your brand needs to drive traffic.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

Before the age of the Internet, gathering information for a new vehicle required taking a look at the local paper or paging through a manufacturer’s booklet.  Driving down to your local dealership for a test drive it was something that was part of the norm.  In some of those cases, it may have necessitated a phone call to schedule an appointment to get a hands-on experience. 

Today’s automotive marketing efforts now open us to numerous possibilities to gather information for a new vehicle purchase, especially with access to the Internet.  With a few finger taps on the keyboard or a few clicks of the mouse, we have 24/7 access to automotive reviews (both professional and peer), reliability ratings and pricing details for any make or model that may fit into a targeted purchase.

At this point in the automotive buying process, it’s crucial that online car dealer marketing be effective.  To do so, a dealership needs to develop an online presence that stands out among a crowded landscape and gives the consumer a need to visit their sites and showrooms.

The follow represent just a handful of points to consider when putting an online plan in motion.

Engagement. As social media continues to make inroads in all facets of automotive marketing, the most important aspect is that it provides engagement with the customer.  With the emergence of Facebook as a social media dominator, it’s vitally important in establishing a presence on that medium to build a robust online brand.

Reach. As noted in previous posts, the Internet offers “active reach.” Teamed with a traditional car dealer marketing plan (mailers, collateral coupons, etc.), automotive dealers now have unprecedented reach in offering prospects information on future sales, service specials and more.  Putting more relevant details into the right hands helps enhance reach, can improve sales and offers a better return on investment.

Choice. Developing a dealership’s online presence also offers the ability to tailor messages to specific targets.  Recently, we touched upon being proactive in your automotive marketing campaigns.  Within that entry, there were four key points (control, active listening, engagements and staying on point) that give planning online some clout.  When coupled with the identification of active and non-active prospects, these plans can help improve the efficiency of marketing campaigns.

A strong, online presence should consist of many key elements that help establish the dealership’s standing and reputation amongst peers.  A plan that offers engagement, reach and choice provides automotive marketing campaigns a solid starting point and lays the groundwork for establishing an online presence.

In the future, we will delve further into this topic and explore how each of these points can prove valuable for your dealership.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the customer retention management field, automotive retention programs that allow for users to ‘opt-in’ for continuous updates on their vehicles serve as an important tool for automotive dealerships to drive customers into their service centers.

In fact, automotive dealerships use multiple channels of communication such as targeted direct mail, voice messaging and emails to make sure they’re always in touch with their customers.  By using data segmentation techniques, these solutions allow dealerships to save on costs by sending out crucial information to relevant targets.

The following are some benefits in using a set it and forget customer retention strategy to help drive traffic into your dealership and help with your overall return on investment (ROI).

• Right offer, right time. One of the primary advantages of a targeted marketing plan is delivering the right offer, to the right person, at the right time.  If a customer is coming out of a lease arrangement, a well-timed email informing them of some leasing offers can help pique your customer’s interest in a new vehicle.

• Budget appropriately. When putting together direct marketing initiatives, it’s easy to want to have grand plans and want to do anything you can to increase that ROI for your dealership.  But take a deep breath: if you’ve strategized right and used all the tools available to you (email, texting, social media and an properly maintained database), you can have a very budget-friendly campaign that delivers results.

• Be aggressive – to the right targets. With any direct marketing campaigns, there are two sets of targets: customers that actively consume offers that come their way and inactive ones that either read the offer and forgets it or simply tosses it aside without batting an eye.  It’s the latter that an aggressive, discounted promotional campaign should be directed towards.  By doing so, you’ll give them incentive to come to your dealership for such items as brake specials, services and wheel alignments.

Putting together effective targeted direct marketing campaigns that use multiple channels helps increase response rates and augments your chances of reaching customers.  It also ensures that you’re always communicating with them the way they want to receive communications.  So if you’re timely with your targeted direct mail offers, budget your plans appropriately and are aggressive in your offers with inactive customers, you’re well on the road to a rock solid ROI on your efforts.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

When was the last time you were in the airport?

Did you have a lot of personal communication? Did you see people speaking with one another, laughing, conversing and seemingly having a great time? 

Our guess is probably not.

Instead, you probably saw people glued to their laptops, iPhones® or smartphones.  Today’s consumers are glued to their electronic devices, constantly seeking information in an age where they must have it and have it now.

Because of the diverse demand of consumers’ time, their attention span can be very limited.

In order to participate in this quick game, you need to be invited to communicate with the customer.  It is important that you are personally invited to their home arena; the consumers’ door must be open to communication with you.   The only way that can be done effectively is through a Personal Communications Invitation.  When the consumer opts in for you to “Touch Base,” you are being invited to communicate by any number of means: direct mail, e-mails or other correspondences.

When given this opportunity, do not take this invitation lightly: be courteous as to avoid having them opt out.  Once invited, utilize that “golden ticket” as an excellent opportunity for ROI potential.  When you can get that opportunity to speak to the consumer on a personal level, it’s like they’re saying “I like you and I want to talk to with you about what you can offer me.”   When in this position, your Marketing Communications must have:

• Strategy
• Target
• Theme
• Message
• Call to Action
• Urgency
• Consistency

In my next blog, we’ll delve into the topic of The Art of Acquiring New Automotive Customers.

Happy planning…

~ Paul Ryan, Field Account Manager @ DMEautomotive

Bio: Paul Ryan brings over 25 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, and client services. He joined DMEautomotive in February of 2008, as a Regional Territory Manager. With proven success as an inside sales representative selling the FullCircle Solutions’ Bullseye program, he was recognized frequently as Sales Person of the Month and received the highest honor of Sales Person of the Year for 2008. In August of 2009, Paul managed, “Direct-To-Dealer” – Mail Division, responsible for overseeing the sales for the “Direct-To-Dealer” Mail Division. Currently he is traveling in the Midwest as Field Account Manager. Paul graduated with a B.B.A, in Business Administration from Iowa State University in 1982.

In the earlier days of direct email marketing, the line of thinking by many car dealers was to send as many messages as possible to get the consumer’s attention.  It wasn’t about the message’s relevancy, it was simply an effort to grab the consumer’s attention and say, “Hey, we’re here! Click me for more information!”   It wasn’t unprecedented, however – its predecessor direct mail marketing was often used in the exact same way.

Over time, marketers using direct mail and email have made adjustments to make their efforts and objectives more pointed and relevant to their targeted clients.  By narrowing down selected targets through initiatives like database cleansing, direct marketers are finding that it’s not the amount of mailing pieces being distributed to intended targets; it’s the relevancy and quality of the message that’s important.

What other considerations are there in having more relevant, targeted campaigns?

The simple answer as to why car dealers should opt for quality over quantity in their marketing efforts is “it saves money.” The more elaborate explanation is that by using an updated client database, the campaign is more likely to benefit from a better return on investment because the right message is being delivered to the right people – at the right time.

DMEautomotive’s Paul Ryan recently noted that using themes for automotive direct marketing campaigns can make the sales doors swing.  Opting for themes in your customer retention campaigns can be highly effective in producing revenue for car dealerships due to the timeliness of the message.  Companies such as DMEautomotive offer customer retention programs that offer thematic campaigns that dealers can choose, implement and send with a click of a button and only a few pieces of information.

The pitch of the targeted direct marketing should have effective content.  The content needs to draw the prospect in and get them to act on the offer.  Offers of discounted oil changes, reduced services on a next visit or even car washes on every visit can be effective tools to getting in the consciousness of the consumer when it comes time to make car decisions.

When it comes to the actual “hook or pain” of your automotive service marketing campaigns, it’s how the message is delivered to your target that grabs their attention. When you’re thinking about your direct marketing materials, you should consider:

• Is it pointed?
• Should I use direct mail or email?
• Is it professional?
• Would a postcard or a tri-fold mailer be more effective?
• How is the pitch delivered?

In automotive marketing, it is true what the old adage says: quality rules quantity.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.